A DIALOGUE WITH POET PROFESSOR RAM KRISHNA SINGH
A
DIALOGUE WITH POET PROFESSOR RAM KRISHNA SINGH UNDER THE AEGIS OF THE ARAB HAIKU
CLUB
January
09, 2023
English Version
KHALIL JOMAA: Professor Ram Krishna Singh, you have a lot of experience writing haiku and tanka, and we want to get to know your literary worlds and benefit from you and your recommendations to the Arab readership. The first question: We know a lot about you, and we have read your poems and translated many of them into Arabic. We are always proud of your presence with us, and we want you to brief us. How do you see your poetic experience? Have you accomplished all your haiku and tanka?
R K SINGH: My academic
preoccupation for four decades kept me from concentrating on my poetry, even if
I have been writing poems and publishing my collections from time to time which
helped me make my identity known as an Indian English poet. Besides academic
and research articles and book reviews, I had already written and published a
reasonably good amount of poetry that, I thought, deserved serious academic and
media attention, but it could not happen.
By
now I have published some thirty poetry books, including a dozen haiku and
tanka collections. After my retirement
as Professor in December 2015, I have exclusively concentrated on my poetry,
and am fortunate to have received generous support from poet friends like Taner
Murat (Romania), Joseph Berolo (Colombia), Hidenori Hiruta (Japan), Rika Inami
(Japan), Mohamed Helmi Al-Rishah (Palestine), Mahmoud Al-Rajabi (Jordon), Nabil
Al-Mujali (Moldova), Khalil Jomaa (Canada), Ola Sawah (Lebanon), Agouray Fatima
(Morocco), Basema Al-Awwam (Jordan), and several others from Tunisia, Libya,
Algeria, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Taiwan, China, Japan, Romania, Croatia, Russia
etc who readily translated my poems and published them in books and journals,
both print and online.
This
indeed is encouraging in that my poetry has reached out to a larger audience
through translation in different languages, though it has not yet been
critically or academically explored to make its impact at home or overseas.
Now
shorter poems like tanka and haiku keep happening, though their frequency has
reduced, and I have continued to make a book a year. Since the last two years, thanks to the
generous support by Professor Mahmoud Al-Rajabi, I have published four haiku
e-books, namely A Lone Sparrow (2021), Changing Seasons (2021), Lantern
in the Sky (2022), and SHE (2022) which is gratifying. Recently I
also submitted another collection of haiku, ‘Drifty Silence’, which may be
appearing shortly.
I
view haiku writing as something innately spiritual, with sensuousness as the
key factor; looking outside to communicate the inside; expressing
the unity of human being with all existence; imaging life in all its
hues – from physical lust to divine sensation; communicating nature with purity
of feeling and sincerity of experience. Haiku helps me create silence using
words, just as it connects us with all beings in the life cycle. So, it’s
writing is continuous.
KHALIL JOMAA: The haiku came out of the
cloak of the strict classical Japanese, and it has spread today around the
world in a modern style, and it has deviated from the restrictions in structure
and subject matter. How do you see the experiences of modernity in haiku or the
so-called city haiku?
R K SINGH: The limited form of haiku has a lot of
possibilities if the poet has a sense of proportion, or harmony, the expressive
side of language or rhythm which
permeates
the words. It’s practice has an awakening effect. The practitioner gradually
discovers the truth of life and truth of the world through spontaneous
observation of nature, humans, animals,
events, rituals, festivals, politics, movement, blooming and fading, power and compassion,
honesty and hypocrisy, love and hatred, waking and sleeping, tangible and
intangible, anything and everything, and
anywhere, from toilet to tomb.
Having
said this, let me add one more point: I see nothing wrong in ‘nativizing’ a
foreign form or medium according to one’s own expressive need, taste, and
sensibility. Since the Japanese haiku
has become international, poets from different countries and professional
backgrounds have been experimenting with the medium as per their native
cultural, linguistic, literary, social, or personal perspective, outlook,
tradition, and ethos. They are inspired
by their own environment, or literary ecosystem, and try to use , for example,
their own ‘kigo’ words to reflect on
life, or inner and outer nature they are familiar with, in 5-7-5, 4-6-4, 3-5-3, or short-long-short
rhythm; and many poets are also writing free-form haiku, besides writing beyond
the all too familiar topos. Even if they live in cities and many of them are
not necessarily ‘literary’, they have their own spiritual instinct, their own
vision to image what the creation around us means, or how humans and nature are deeply connected. They
continue to re-define everything, including haiku. But they are all seeker and
revealer in their own way, and deserve sympathetic reading and appreciation.
KHALILJOMAA: I call the present
situation surrounding haiku a "state of flux". However, this is not
necessarily meant in a bad sense, though there are lots of "bad bits"
in it. In other words, we find ourselves, curiously, in creative chaos --
arguably the greatest chaos ever, considering the number of people, languages,
cultures and regional differences relating to haiku. As our starting point,
might we establish roughly where you stand in the increasingly complex axis of
world haiku co-ordinates in terms of different "schools of thought"
-- or the conservative versus the progressive, or formal versus free? Are you
part of the old guard or a leader of free thinkers?
R K SINGH:
I think you’re right. Haiku poets writing in English are using all kinds of
form, varying from three lines to four lines to two lines or one line, and
expressing themselves within seventeen syllables or minimum words. Each one is
trying to discover the form that suits their ‘poetic’ sense. The less serious
ones, however, are also indulging in verbal cleverness that may not evince what we call ‘haiku
spirit’. Since more and more people, with or without any poetic sense, are
dabbling in what is mere ‘finger
exercises’ for them, creative chaos, as you have said, is normal. With passage
of time, I’m sure each one would know where she or he stands, irrespective of
their membership of a ‘mutual admiration society’ which has been active almost everywhere.
As for my position, I think I have
followed the Haiku in English as it evolved in the last five decades. There is
no literariness or philosophizing, no didactic statement, no verbal cleverness
in my haiku. As I said before, sensuousness is important but it is very
difficult to achieve: Not all can easily
show what they see, touch, taste, or hear, nor can they image what they
actually observe or experience or perceive in a moment. I view haiku,
like many others, as ‘poetry of the moment’ and try to write
it as a complete poem.
KHALIL JOMAA:
In your explorations and your search for such discoveries, what sort of process
is working when you actually compose a haiku? Do you start with your haiku
principles, then choose and create its theme, subject matter, style and form
accordingly? Or, conversely, do you simply write anything that responds to your
sensibility at the time of its composition, then worry about the principles
afterwards? Or, don't you have any such system, but instead, "just be"?
R K SINGH: As I just said, haiku lies in the experience
of a moment. So, what I write is the
expression of a moment’s experience as observed or perceived. Sometimes there
is a flash of inspiration, or wonder of the
moment, or insight just happening while
I’m talking or walking or thinking or
doing something or reading something or watching a performance, movie,
or work of art etc . Sometimes I am
inspired by reading The Bible, or the Prayer Book, or any sacred book of a
religion, such as The Upanisads, The Vedas, or The Holy Quran. The poem gets composed in no time. It may
happen in 5-7-5, 4-6-4, or 3-5-3 rhythm naturally. If an editor suggests a minor change and I
find it in tune with my experience, I readily accept it.
Since I do not write poems with a ‘plan’
or ‘topic’ in mind, there is no reason to think about principles etc. The poem begins and ends naturally or even
abruptly, though editing/revising later is possible.
KHALIL JOMAA: I would now like to discuss the features of
your literature in general. You have tried to embody images of haiku of a
subjective nature, as well as haiku oriented with subjective, surreal and
mythological elements, the emerging social and political awareness, and the
legitimization of haiku practices in India. You used Indian kigo, images and
experiences in your haiku. It is noted that you do not differentiate between
haiku and senryu.
R K SINGH: Yes, I do not differentiate between haiku and
senryu because of the nature of my haiku and personal taste. And, you’re right in pointing the subjective
nature of my poetry. When I began writing in English, it was largely short lyrical
poems with limited literary experience outside the undergraduate or
postgraduate classroom. The subject matter too was personal and limited to
socio-political observations. As I read recent poetry coming from the USA, the U K and other countries in the late 1970s, my taste developed to the expression
of more intimate experiences, and I composed more and more poems on sex, love,
and joy. I discovered meaning in passions, and sex became a liberating and
purifying factor in my poetic scheme. Gradually irony, urban life and its false
values, social injustice and disintegration, human sufferings, degradation of
relationship, and spiritual search also featured in my poems containing haiku
and tanka-like forms. In fact, in most of my regular poems after the 1980s, the
haiku rhythm should be easily discernible. Since I aspired for recognition as an Indian English poet, I tried to express
Indian ethos and sensibility, using English, which continues till date.
In the 1980s, when I tried to write
haiku and tanka as independent poems, and interacted with poet friends from
various countries, my poetry gradually became ‘international’ as I succeeded in publishing them in many journals originating from outside
India. It has been a long journey now, and so many poets and critics view me as
a representative haikuist from India.
As regards the use of Indian myths and
season words in my haiku, I think it is normal and should be expected from an
Indian poet. This is what distinguishes my haiku from others. In fact, it is
through such markers, haiku and tanka get variety just as poets from different
countries, cultures and societies enrich the genre and make it acceptable
worldwide.
KHALIL JOMAA: Professor Singh, where does your poetic
inspiration come from?
R K SINGH:
From my everyday life and living, from observing events outside as well as
inside, from my awareness of the nature of passing time, from my effort to know
myself, and from my reading the Bible and other scriptures. Some role is also played by the deadly monotony of
existence in the maze of routine and de-motivating environment of campus life
in Dhanbad for nearly four long decades!... The source of creative inspiration
has always been mysterious… Don’t know,
it just happens….
KHALIL JOMAA: We are eager to see some of your poems. Will you share with us here four or five of your favorite poems?
R K SINGH: It’s so difficult to select a ‘favourite’ poem. Yet, here are some old poems that I would like to share. It’s a random selection from the diaries I note my poems in.
1
THERE’S NO PARADISE
slips by damp towel
cold sets in slippy hands
rain flows on windows
black water crawls down
like diseased reptiles
why scrub the smelly
underbellies
there’s no paradise
[11 November 1988]
2
IN VOID
Shadows
spring from night
whispering darkness
fog the street light
and I walk
alone
against wind
unseen and unheard
glide
into dreams
create circles
of longings
or spin wheels
of miracles
with blind faith
drug genes and
drone out psalms
in void
[26 May 1993]
3
She props the stooping lemons
with stake but avoids
bending close to me:
I die to draw the blossom
in my twining arms
but she likes the other scent
[05 August 1994]
4
GOD, SEX AND THE WORLD
It’s part of prayer
to have the lingam kissed
or kiss it to feel
the creator’s pulse
for a moment
thank the body too
that houses the spirit
we seek in His name
for relief and salvation
through the cycle
of day and night
meeting and departing
learning and unlearning
each moment synthesizing
god, sex and the world
[14 December 2000]
5
LONG TRIP
Ageing he thinks of
the ashes and the long trip
ahead in spirit
feels the earth he would
become celebrating life
as good as ever
[02 February 2001]
6
HAIKU & TANKA
no letters today—
addresses of his dead friend
graying in diary [22 October 1997]
tending the hooks
she blushes to see
the line of jewels [02 August 1998]
after cleaning
the maid leaves behind
an oily smell [12 December 2000]
her lonely grief
melts in the candle wax
evening’s dark floor [11 May 2007]
wiping his face
under the umbrella
an old man with books [20 August 2010]
a mist covers
the valley of her body
leaves memories
like the shiver of cherry
in dreamy January [23 September 2007]
resting his chin
on the back of his palms
he stands at
the dusted railing to watch
the planes roar and take off [17 February 2008]
watching the moon
in the western horizon
two haiku poets
scratch each other’s back and mock
the rest as neophytes [10 March 2008]
on the prayer mat
the hands raised in vajrasan
couldn’t contact God
the prayer was too long and
the winter night still longer [09 December 2010]
KHALIL JOMAA: You have become very well known to the readers of the Arab
Haiku Club and participated in the Haiku Competition arbitration. How do you
see the Arab haiku? What advice would you give to the younger generation of
amateurs and beginners in the world of haiku?
R K SINGH:
Thanks Khalil for your appreciation. I largely owe my reputation among Arabs to
Professor Mahmoud Al-Rajabi and Professor Mohamed Helmi Al-Rishah who drew the
attention of Arab readers to my haiku and tanka through their translation and
publications. It was indeed an honour to have been invited to judge the
international haiku competition under the aegis of the Arab Haiku Club .
As for my
views about the Arab haiku, honestly, I do
not know Arabic and have read it only in English translation (often via Google Translate) which has been
qualitatively quite impressive. I can imagine the Arabic original of many a
haikuist to be much better, just as I
get a feel of the continuation of the mainstream Arabic poetry, both structurally
and texturally. Some Arab Haiku Poets seem to have successfully melded the
Japanese and Arabic poetry (couplets?) tradition in three and five lines. In
fact, collectively the Arab poets seem to provide a vast spectrum with images
of the Arab cultures, kigo words, and imagination, which is a good sign.
Moreover, it
could also be possible for serious poets to search for a substitute to the
Japanese Zen Buddhism. I think the Arab haiku poets should also reflect the
images of the native Quranic meditation and intuition of universal value. The
Arabs have their own rich spiritual tradition to explore and express in their
haiku without being philosophical, didactic, religious or moral. A haiku poet
can meditate and draw on the verses from
the Holy Quran and develop interpretative insights in simple words using contemporary imagery, just as one can
compose poems reflecting different
social practices in various regions or tribes, their values and norms, their
aspirations, their festivals, beliefs, social practices, food habits, prejudices, or spiritual consciousness etc. The events and environment of violence,
the refugee crises, the political atmosphere, the condition of women and
children, the aspirations of youths, the
struggle for freedom etc also are
legitimate haiku subjects as part of the expression of life and nature as it
obtains today. And, what is lacking is a database of unique Arab seasonal words,
or cultural keywords, or kigopedia, as
Gabi Greve has done for several countries which
can be viewed on www.worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com
KHALIL
JOMAA: Although poetry and haiku are
particularly difficult to translate due to the internal structure of haiku,
which is open to interpretation and multiple readings. Do you have any
impressions that translators have succeeded to some extent in translating your
texts into Arabic?
R
K SINGH: I have no idea about this. Fellow
poet-translators and experts are the best judges. I have faith in the translators and am in
favour of giving them the freedom to translate a poetic text with interpretation, which includes deletion,
omission, and change in the original, where necessary, for wider social
acceptance. However, the success lies in retaining the spirit of the original without any distortion or attempt to
re-write or revise it. So far as the effectiveness of translations done so far
is concerned, as I said, I would like to go by the opinion of experts who might
be good in both English and Arabic languages and their nuances. Going by the comments from fellow Arab poets,
I believe the Arabic translation of my poems have been quite effective, and I
am grateful to all the translators who willingly spent their valuable time to
read and interpret my verses for the Arab readership.
KHALIL
JOMAA: Professor Ram Krishna Singh, we
would like to dwell on the meeting with you and delve into your rich poetic
experiences, and we will always strive in this direction in future meetings. We
are pleased to have you with us and thank you for your patience and dedicating
your time to answering our questions. Do you have a final word you would like
to say here?
R K SINGH: Thanks dear Khalil for giving me an opportunity to interact with you on my poetry. You made me look back and share my experiences that I might not have thought about but for your probing questions. It was a wonderful experience. I wish haiku and tanka poetry is also recognized for academic exploration and someone in the Arab world undertakes a critical study of my poetry as part of Translation studies. The possibilities are immense and I am sure young scholars everywhere will find opportunities to do something fresh.Thank you for the honour and thanks to the site administrator محمود الرجبي once again.
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Arabic Version
posted by Ram Krishna Singh at 10:38 PM
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